Primer
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 10 months, 2020–2026
14:03 · 4.5M views · Nov 2, 2020
Primer uses simulations to compare voting systems such as first-past-the-post, approval, ranked choice and others. It shows how each system behaves and can be manipulated, with links to further voting theory resources.
HN commenters link it to explain why plurality voting produces two-party systems and how ranked-choice voting suffers spoiler effects.
10 comments from Hacker News
Let's see. Canada currently has 338 MPs and over 80% (!) of those (278) belong to one of two majority parties. So yes, in theory Canada has a multi party system. In practice this multi party system is severely damaged by the effects of the FPTP voting system. There are mathematical reasons for FPTP to result in two party systems. [0] explains it pretty well. There don't have to be deeper underlying stuctural reasons for the dichotomy. So to combat two party systems, replacing FPTP with an alternative voting system seems a pretty reasonable step. [0] this video
> and then we promised to not game the system That's the key point. Unfortunately, all known voting systems can be gamed. Here's an interesting video that explains how they can be manipulated: this video
This is an interesting post, But requires changes "to the system" that is a little too big for my small brain to think about. If I might diverge from a little as a thought I'm still figuring out: It ends on the thought of "for a common good" which makes me think of that utilitarian ideal, one that I don't think is going to be approached by democratic processes of popular vote and the like* So what then? if not "democracy" to get us looking after the common good, is the alternative autocracy, totalitarianism? being realised through monarch-ism or dictatorship? There's a good video [1] about how fascism was able to be so prevalent in the 20th centry when politics became less individualised and more collective will, "Common good for US" etc in both communism and nazism. Fascism itself relies on having an "us vs them" approach - which, while old kingdoms also had, were perhaps less pronounced and pointed? (I don't know, I'm just imagining a kingdom wanting to keep to itself rather than invading europe) So it leads me to think: is the only way we can get towards this "for the common good" is to fall in step behind a mono-government that we must be selective to ensure that no harm is done to those outside of "our" domain? or is this all just friviolovily and it's up to us to organise and look after those around us (smaller feudal states or such) Not sure, interesting thoughts, happy for any corrections if I was wrong about something. * There's an interesting approach to popular vot
> the EU is not democratic in the first place EU Election system is _literally_ one of the fairest systems in existence[0] ensuring that every party get some measure of proportional representation. Compared to English First Past the Post (minority rule, and 2 party systems) or Scotlands Single-transferrable vote (which is still winner take all); but D'Hondts method means that people can be safe in the knowledge they'll be represented and it's proportional to the input. It's not "perfect" but it's _literally_ the best humans have come up with. [0]: [LINK] [0.1]: this video CGP Grey did some videos on these: FPTP (England): [LINK] STV (Scotland): [LINK] D'Hondt-esque (EU): [LINK]
Lee Drutman advocates for ranked choice voting, but implementations in the USA still degenerated to 2 parties. RCV still has a spoiler effect. [LINK] this video Instead, we need approval voting, or even STAR voting. [LINK] (Drutman appears to have somewhat changed his views on RCV, but I don't think his "fusion voting" idea will catch on until we have multiple parties in the first place. [LINK] )